Surprise! Spotify now says its Weeknd debut beat out Apple Music

Spotify on Wednesday issued an update regarding streaming figures related to The Weeknd's new album "My Dear Melancholy," saying it beat Apple Music's debut of the same record by 3 million streams.

Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek. | Source: Spotify

On Tuesday, The Verge, citing statistics from Republic Records, reported My Dear Melancholynetted 26 million streams in its first 24 hours of availability on Apple Music, with lead single "Call Out My Name" pulling in an additional 6 million streams. The performance almost doubled that of Spotify, which eked out 3.5 million streams over the same time period.

Today, however, Spotify informed the publication that initial numbers provided to Republic were incorrect to the tune of 4 million streams.

"The Weeknd's EP My Dear Melancholy, received nearly 29 million Spotify streams within the first 24 hours of release, while the single "Call Out My Name" received 7.5 million streams within the first 24 hours of release," a spokesperson told The Verge. "These numbers do not include streams of two videos for songs from the EP that can only be found on Spotify."

When seeking confirmation from Republic, the publication said The Weeknd's record label offered yet another number — 6.5 million streams over 24 hours — that appears to jibe with Spotify's own global charts. The extra million streams are as yet unaccounted for.

The update comes just hours after Apple Music announced reaching a watershed 40 million subscriber count. While a far cry from Spotify's massive numbers, 71 million paying subscribers and 159 million active users, Apple Music is slowly creeping up on the market leader that went public on Tuesday.